The Indefatigable, the
ship so readily granted to Sir Edward, was not an ordinary
frigate but a razé, a ship of the line cut down by a deck.
She had been a sixty-four gun ship, and had been launched at
Buckler's Yard in 1784. Even at that date the sixty-four
was becoming unpopular and few ships of this class were built
during the next ten years. The seventy-four gun ship had become
the normal ship of the line and a sixty-four gun ship was, by
1793, regarded as an anachronism. During the peace these vessels
had acted as heavy cruisers. But in 1794 it was decided to
convert the Indefatigable into a frigate. At the same time
two other surviving ships of this out-of-date class, the Magnanime
and Anson, were also converted.

The process of conversion
consisted in the removal of the quarter-deck and forecastle, and
of part of the main deck. It was the middle part of the main deck
that was cut away, and this process left two isolated fragments
of this deck to become a new quarter-deck and
forecastle. The old lower deck, now partly uncovered, became the
main deck. Deprived thus of its lower deck, the ship ceased to be
a two-decker, and became ipso facto a frigate. It may, however,
be observed that this operation produced a frigate of exceptional
size, at least thirty feet too long and six or eight feet too
broad.

It is natural to ask at this
point why all this trouble should be taken to make a ship less
formidable than she was before. In understanding the motive for
this alteration the central fact to be grasped is that the French
had given up building vessels of this class at an earlier date
than the English. Had the French still possessed a few sixty-fours,
the Anson, Indefatigable and Magnanime would have been
left unaltered in the hope of their encountering them. But the
French had only ships of the line and frigates and smaller craft.

Now, the reason why a sixty-four
could not be allowed to meet a French seventy-four is obvious - the
former would be blown out of the water. But the reason why a
sixty-four should not be allowed to pursue French frigates is of
a more subtle kind. One consideration to be urged against such a
policy was the disproportion of the means to the end. A sixty-four
needed a crew of 500 men. To send such a ship to deal with
frigates carrying some 300 men would be a waste of force. It
would be the mistake of using a cannon to destroy one's neighbour's
parrot. The three ships would between them take 600 men in excess
of the proper number the work required, without making the
desired result any the more certain.

This argument has been stated
first as the one most likely to appeal to the reader. It was
probably the last consideration to strike the Admiralty of the
day. The real obstacle to the use of the sixty-four as a cruiser
was Pride. To send big ships to chase small ones was thought to
be un-chivalrous, and - what was worse - undignified. Chivalry was far
from dead at that time. But the refusal of a ship of the line to
fire at a frigate was chivalrous only in part; the primary
objection to it was Pride. Dignity only demanded an equality on paper - there was no objection to arming a frigate more heavily
than the enemy's frigates - but a theoretical equality there had to
be. For this reason the sixty-four had either to be reduced in
force until roughly equal to a frigate, or crowded with guns
until roughly equal to a ship of the line. As the latter
operation was impossible the former had to be adopted.